Influence of temperature on the activity of anammox granular biomass

The aim of this study was to determine a short-term and long-term effect of temperature on the anammox rate and determination of temperature coefficients in the Arrhenius and Ratkowsky equations. The short-term effects of temperature on the anammox granular biomass were investigated in batch tests at ten different temperatures in the range of 10–55 °C. The maximum overall nitrogen removal rate of 1.3 gN gVSS−1·d−1 was observed at 40 °C (VSS: volatile suspended solids). The minimum rate, close to 0 gN gVSS−1·d−1, was observed for the limits of the analyzed temperature range (10 and 55 °C). The activity tests carried out at 55 °C showed an irreversible loss of the activity due to the observed biomass lysis. Subsequently to the batch tests, a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was operated at different temperatures (from 30 to 11 °C) to determine the long-term effects of temperature. The system was successfully operated at 15 °C, but when temperature was decreased to 11 °C, nitrite started to accumulate and the system lost its stability. The temperature coefficient (θ) was 1.07 for the batch tests carried out in the temperature range of 10–40 °C. In contrast, during the long-term SBR operation, substantially different θ had to be estimated for two temperature ranges, 1.07 (T = 15–30 °C) and 1.65 (T = 11–15 °C).